MIchael Rider's Celine Star Is a Magic Wand of ‘Infinite Possibilities' for LVMH

‘Obsessed’ is not a word used on Anne of Carversville. except on rare occasions. I’m willing to bet that we haven’t used the word ‘obsessed’ once in 2026. It’s time for a change.

My state of being increasingly impressed with Celine creative director Michael Rider shows no sign of subsiding. And now, I am over-the-moon obsessed with the Celine ‘Infinite Possibilities’ Campaign.

Much credit goes to Charles Levai and Kevin Tekinel and their highest-standards creative input. It just seems that everything is rockin’ at Celine; that an entire team is on the same wave length. As an observer of people, it makes me feel optimistic in an unoptimistic time in American history.

I wanted to write about Celine’s success in China, but ran into Jing Daily’s concerning reports on falling July 2026 luxury brand revenues. Beijing is cracking down on budgeted government tax receipts and the flow of money in and out of the country by China’s VICs. More later about Celine’s popularity in China.

Michael Rider has achieved much in his short tenure at Celine. Hedi Slimane didn’t leave Celine in any tattered and torn state of disrepair or slo’mo sameness. Hedi left it strong, and like Rider, Slimane moved out in year one of his tenure to grow revenues and profits.

Lauren Sherman at Puck says otherwise, but she’s wrong. Read AOC’s Lauren Sherman Aisle 9 Cleanup on Hedi at Celine. Sherman said [I paraphrase] that it took 4-5 years for Hedi Slimane to execute fully his Celine vision to achieve financial results and Anderson deserves the same financial parameters.

In short order, Rider has taken Slimane’s success and refined it through his own unique lens of Celine’s DNA in spectacular fashion. I’ll bet that the revenue trajectory is riding major Michael Rider momentum in these tumultuous, international, luxury fashion waters.

Michael Rider as a New Humanism Globalist

After learning more about Michael Rider’s background today, I can only imagine how much Louis Vuitton CEO Pietro Beccari, who is also in charge of LVMH Fashion Group, feels in alignment with Rider.

The designer’s background is different from Pharrell’s for certain, but even I shook my head over how Rider got off a quasi-activist, values-driven career track, to end up as creative director of Celine. A March 22, 2026 profile of the designer in Le Monde helps us understand Rider’s creative roots as a form of global mashup. The creative director’s vision comes to life in a campaign video that imports these global culture cues to anchor Celine as a sophisticated, fusion-culture brand that defines French culture on this global platform.

Speaking about his nine years with Phoebe Philo at Celine, Rider told Le Monde:

“Phoebe and I are very different but, in the end, very complementary, like yin and yang. The nine years I spent by her side are precious to me, just like the team that made up her studio. We came from everywhere – there were English, Americans, Italians, North Africans, Asians...

Now this is Anne’s kind of design studio!!

Open-Minded with Community Focus at a Young Age

Michael Rider grew up in Washington, DC, with parents who were lawyers specializing in civil and family law. He studied Portuguese and education sciences at Brown University in Providence, RI and headed to Brazil for several months to write his senior thesis. Rider’s focus was dance and sexuality in Brazil, a joyful reality that many of us know is quite different from most other countries.

The young American taught English to children living in favelas there. After his return to America as a Brown graduate, Michael Rider moved to Oakland, across the San Francisco Bay. Rider worked as a teacher in a middle school for students who had dropped out of the regular school system.

"It was very rewarding, but exhausting. I was barely 22, but I felt like I was 45! I lasted two years."

Now you understand my comparing Michael Rider with Pharrell Williams. I assume they continue to have a shared perspective on the many critical issues of our time.

In My Horse Race, Michael Rider’s Celine Bears Down on Dior

Jonathan Anderson better get his act together at Dior, or Rider should make overtaking Dior a 5-year goal, with a BIG bonus attached if he succeeds. And Rider can fund a school for special kids of all backgrounds. Or he can use Pharrell’s existing YELLOWHAB Virginia school template for his school, in another city.

What a hoot!! Two successful LVMH creative directors funding cutting-edge schools. Women VICs loved this kind of private philanthropy around educating all talented kids, no matter what life story they bring to the classroom.

Right Here, Right Now — Only Pietro Beccari Can Fix This Precarious Situation. Perhaps with Yet Another Lieutenant. I Know Where Anne Would Turn for Help.

I have to believe that Dior is handing over some marketing dollars to Beccari, as we speak, so that the maestro of brand-building Beccari can pump Celine for certain and other brands as well. I’m hearing promising claims about Fendi, but I’m not impartial with Chiuri, so you should wait for the rumor to bear fruit.

Chiuri and Fendi are definitely in better shape in China than Dior is. Several of those issues — like how Dior handled the January, 2025 data security breach — have nothing to do with Anderson. That’s Delphine Arnault’s responsibility and I’m speechless that VICs got the same universal form letter/email that was sent to all Dior customers in China. WOW! I would have been on an airplane to China to deal with the VICs personally.

Dior In China and Beyond

The book tote debacle in China is all on Anderson, however. A few months after telling Dior’s best VIC clients in China that they don’t deserve human communication about the serious data breach of their private information, Anderson threw their cherished personalization on the Dior book tote into the garbage can, to make way for his book titles. His favorite books designs are more important than gifting the tote with the woman’s name embroidered on it.

Assuming that Chinese VICs want to shill his degenerate, Eurocentric misogynist, racist, white men rule books on his behalf, Anderson literally made it clear there’s a new sheriff in town at Dior and he doesn’t embrace the “Less I, More Us” approach to global culture and branding. He is, after all, the Sun King.

As a result, the resale value of Dior book totes in China went into freefall in June 2026. Read the details in New Humanism. If the data is incorrect, Dior should send the correct data and I will both apologize and issue a very public retraction.

I bring up the topic because of my sassy, saucy horse race story about the ‘situation’ causing a whole lotta stress at Dior. And that’s before the luxury leader board became a zero sum competition with Chanel in the lead, except for our knowing Louis Vuitton’s detailed performance.

Chanel, Dior and Chiuri Lovers

What we know with a high-degree of confidence is that Dior is hardest hit by Chanel’s success. Yes, Chanel’s momentum in China also slowed in July due to these tax matters, but Chanel remained positive is the current word on the street. The Arnault family can assure us that everything’s great at Dior, but AOC will risk being wrong and ride with Morgan Stanley. I have not heard one word from private sources to tell me that Dior is just fine.

There’s way too much digital data out there — remember my ‘sky eyes’ research in Dallas and Shanghai, as one small example. Anne is all in for LVMH, but the chairman must understand, that we are not dimwits with no research resources of our own. And he cannot have a repeat performance of his January 2025 claims about Dior’s inability to meet the demands for new product.

We know that Dior production process challenges are real and that LVMH brought in Ludovic Pauchard, the group industrial director and former long-time production head at Louis Vuitton to tackle supply chain and manufacturing problerms at Dior.

That situation is not Jonathan Anderson’s fault either. Clearly, the problem has blown up under Delphine Arnault’s tenure at Dior. I will say that the word on the street is that Anderson changes his mind regularly and expresses a “just fix it, because this is now what I want” attitude. Anderson didn’t create the problem but he’s making it far worse than it was under Chiuri.

The Arnault Family and The Firm

Bernard Arnault is one of the most respected men in international business across multiple sectors. He must not squander that hard-earned reputation and trust within the financial community.

The special emphasis on Dior reflects no ill will towards Anderson, in particular. The financial reality is that under whiz kids Beccari/Chiuri, Dior’s contribution to LVMH profits soared.

If Dior falters, Beccari must figure out how to wring lost dollars from Louis Vuitton and other LVMH businesses like Celine, Loro Piana, Fendi, Loewe, even Givenchy. If anyone can pull off such an insurmountable challenge, it’s Pietro Beccari.

If this intercontinental genius in the luxury business manages to figure out that masterplan, I assume that his future at LVMH is set and all members of the Arnault family will show him the deferential respect Beccari deserves.

As we speak, there is no seasoned family member who operates on Beccari’s level and wants the job. The financial community also understands this reality. An interim backup plan is required before investors become ugly over how risk is managed by The Family.

I’ve read that presently only the family members command the overt respect in the LVMH businesses. All I can say is that if Beccari can lead the troops in weathering this storm, what he will have done for the Arnault family might warrant a reconsideration of these strict protocol rules — at least in his case. You know, just a little exception.

I never saw the Arnaults as being so rigid, but in that steamy, recent Le Monde six-part series, they painted a much more strict vision of how things work in the presence of family members. More like The Firm in Britain.

We will shortly breakdown Bernard Arnault’s X response to the series, one very well received online and in business circles.

Even Heroes Ask for Outside Opinions

This luxury business mastermind remains my business hero, after the mighty-big fall of Les Wexner, who hired me for Victoria’s Secret. One trait Wexner had at the summit of his success — one that seems not to exist at LVMH at all — was treating his brightest talent as contributors of insights across his brands. It was a maverick approach, but he used it on select occasions. In my case, I was employed with then Limited Express and also with Abercrombie.

The latter was hopeless in taking any inputs from me as serious business advice. Before my series of visits to Abercrombie, I did ask the chairman: “You know me very well. My partner’s son [names protected] is not welcome at Abercrombie. He is barred at the door. How can you expect them to take any inputs from me seriously? From a values perspective, we live on different planets.”

LVMH: Risk, Profits and Even More High Potential

Dior has been devoted to selling Jonathan Anderson as the consummate genius at LVMH. I’ve never seen anything like the PR blitz on behalf of Anderson. It might be time to get a wider lens of insights into Dior from his broader LVMH talent bank.

You know: “Less I, More Us”.

The profit contribution of Dior to the LVMH portfolio creates a massive risk. And the combined Louis Vuitton/Dior profit contribution is a titanic-size financial risk for such a large portfolio of brands. I had no idea that the LVMH profits were so centralized until this year.

Anne has two more wild card visions in my back pocket and they will emerge soon enough. I love this luxury conglomerate and its potential with a Brunello Cucinelli mindset. Until I fail completely, I am on a mission with LVMH commentary that is unique and coming from a place of deep respect. ~ Anne